t it
rather hard ever to get happiness that way? Perhaps we might find that
the real way to be happy was just in the other direction. That was all I
meant.... Don't you think, really," the queer man hurried on, as if
fearing an interruption, "it stands to reason it's not possible to be
happy through money? It's so _segregating_, it seems to me--it _must_ be
that way. And isn't that really just what we all want it for?--to make
a--a sort of little class to ourselves, to wall ourselves off from the
rest--from what seems to be--life. It elevates in a sense, of
course--but don't you think it often elevates to a--a sort of rocky
little island?"

They seemed to be personal words, in despite of his exordium, and V.
Vivian boggled a little over the last of them, doubtless perceiving that
he was yielding fast to his old enemy (as indicated to O'Neill) and once
more being too severe with these people, who after all had never had a
chance....

Cally looked briefly away, up the sunny street. She raised a
white-gloved hand and touched her gay hair, which showed that, though
she hesitated, she was perfectly at ease. She had just been struck with
that look suggestive of something like sadness upon the man's face,
which she had noticed that night in the summer-house. She herself was
inclined to connect this look with his religiosity, associating
religion, as she did, exclusively with the sad things of life. Or did it
come somehow from the contrast between his shabby exterior and that
rather shining look of his, his hopefulness incurable?...

She replied, in her modulated and fashionable voice: "I don't agree with
you at all. I'm afraid your ideas are too extraordinary"--she pronounced
it extrord'n'ry, after Mr. Canning--"for me to follow. But before
I go--"

"They do seem extraordinary, I know," broke from him, as if he could not
bear to leave the subject--"but at least they're not original, you
know.... I think that must be just the meaning of the parable of the
rich young man.--Don't you, yourself?"

"The parable of the rich young man?"

She looked at him with dead blankness. Passers-by hopped over the
coal-hole and glanced up at the pair standing engrossed upon the
doorstep. Such as knew either of them concluded from their air that Mr.
Beirne was worse again this morning.

V. Vivian's gaze faltered and fell.

"Just a--a little sort of story," he said, nervously--"you might call it
a little sort of--allegory, illustrating-